Fighting Balance (Celestia series Book 1) Read online

  Mr. Swanson cleared his throat again. “Good. Yes, the experiments resulted in brand new inventions that shaped our way of life now. This is also when we started to see a rise in babies being born with music or acting as their role. Music became popular and going to see plays and movies were the new cool thing. Does anyone know what this exciting time period of great change came to be known as?” The teacher looked up around the room to make sure we were paying attention. His eyes skimmed right over Sara and I because we always only half paid attention.

  Once again Amy spoke up from the back of the room. “I believe it was called the Hollows Cycles,” she smiled proudly. What a know-it-all.

  The teacher gave her the praise she was looking for. I turned to Sara with an exaggerated eye roll. She chuckled and Mr. Swanson continued on.

  “Everyone realized that the Father of Creation wasn’t angry with the changes, because there had been no massacres or natural disasters to report. This is when the Equality Control Center and Task Force were created to keep things from getting out of hand. So basically, variations are good, and uniqueness is bad.” He stopped and bore his eyes into mine as he said the bit about uniqueness.

  “Marcus, the groundbreaker, father of variations, was eventually murdered. Not everyone agreed with the changes he introduced and a group formed to protest them. These people are known as the extremists. Mr. Hollows was also rumored to be a talent, but this was never proven.” I sighed because we’ve been learning the same history lessons for cycles, but there was nothing to be done about it. As he began to drone on about the original seven talents and the powers they possessed, my mind wandered.

  “In the beginning the Father of Creation decided he would need help to keep our world, Celestia, in order so he created his seven children, also known as the Saviors or the Originals.”

  Sara turned to me, exasperated like I was and said with a sigh, “Here we go again. It’s not like the days of the period and the provinces are named after them or anything.” I nodded in agreement and then sunk down in my chair, ready for another boring lecture on Celestia’s origins. Maybe I could take a nap while Mr. Swanson babbled.

  “The Saviors were each given a gift to help the Father of Creation keep balance in our world. Four of the siblings were granted elemental powers. Kai was gifted with the power to manipulate and create water, Aria could control the air and wind around us, Soleil could create and use fire, and Vale could control everything in nature. He was the most powerful of the four because he could make the very ground of Celestia move and shake if he chose to.”

  “Man, I could use that power. If I had a test in Mrs. Brimmer’s class I would totally just create a quake so we could get out of school early. I mean how perfect would that be?” I was practically on the edge of my seat, grabbing Sara’s arm and shaking it excitedly. She just laughed at me.

  “Yes, that’s very practical Callie,” she smiled brightly at me and I sat back in my chair to find the teacher staring at me with one raised eyebrow. You would think they would be used to my interruptions by now.

  “Moving on,” he said with a pointed look at Sara and me. “The Father of Creation also created the three most powerful Saviors. Adela could heal anything and also used her ability to slow down the aging process for her and her siblings.”

  “I bet there’s a certain homeroom teacher who wished she could stop aging.” I leaned over and whispered not so quietly to Sara. She covered her mouth to keep from laughing out loud and Mr. Swanson continued, ignoring us. I could see his neck turning red around the collar of his stiff shirt and knew he was starting to get frustrated by our interpretations of his history lesson.

  “Who can name another Savior?” He had barely finished his sentence when Amy, almost shouting, answered the question.

  “Cyrus! Cyrus was gifted with life or creation. He had the same powers as the Creator himself. But Cyrus was forbidden to bring the dead back to life. The Father of Creation declared that it would disrupt the balance between life and death and that just couldn’t be tampered with.” She was way too excited for this time of day. It was almost sickening to watch. Sara and I both shook our heads, mentally agreeing that she was ridiculous.

  “Ah yes, thank you for that Amy. I’m glad you’ve been paying attention in class.” He threw a stern look in our direction.

  He cleared his throat again, “That brings us to the last Savior, Arius. His father gifted him with death. Arius knew exactly when everyone would perish. He was able to feel everyone’s being. Meaning he could feel and see how bright the inner light of a person’s soul was. Each of us have our own uniquely colored inner light. It differs from the soul itself. Whenever he felt someone’s inner light flicker it was their time to go and their soul would be collected. The soul itself always shone in a bright white light even after death. Unless of course, if it was darkened by the individual themselves.” What a snooze fest. I was moments away from falling asleep with my eyes open when he suddenly said something that piqued my interest.

  “Now the Saviors were all given a different primary power, but they were also all gifted with a few of the same powers as well. For instance, some of the Saviors were extremely strong and some had empathic abilities. All the powers were supposed to be spread out evenly so that one sibling couldn’t overpower the others.” I sucked in my breath, feeling dizzy. I raised my hand and the teacher stopped mid-sentence.

  “Yes, Calliope?”

  With my hand slightly shaking I pulled it back down and began to speak. “It’s Callie, and you’re saying that Arius and the others could feel what others felt? Even feelings like happiness or pure disgust, for example?”

  He looked at me and answered my question without hesitation, “That’s correct Calliope!” I shuddered at the sound of my full name and he continued. “Of course with Arius being such a powerful Original he could feel thousands upon thousands of people’s feelings all at one time. So, to someone like me or you, it would be overwhelming, but he was able to focus the power when needed. Whatever the case, this disproved the original theory that Arius had some type of seer ability.” He put his hands together and smiled at me. “Thank you for finally showing some interest in your history Calliope.” He seemed super proud of himself to have gotten me to finally participate in his class.

  “Um yeah, sure,” I replied offhandedly. He wouldn’t be getting anymore encouragement from me. I could feel Sara’s eyes practically burning a hole in the side of my head. I turned to face her. The look on her face was almost comical. Her eyes were huge and her mouth was hanging open.

  I barked out a laugh and asked, “What’s that face for?”

  “What the hell was that?” She scoffed, perplexed. “You never, ever talk in class anymore. Well you talk, but you never participate,” she gave me a strange look.

  Now it was true that I barely said a word in class, but it wasn’t because I was shy or anything. I just had my own opinions on things, and those very opinions got me into a lot of meetings with the headmaster over the cycles. After about the fiftieth time in his office, I decided it wasn’t worth all the extra homework and lectures on balance and equality. So, I decided to not partake in class anymore. No one wanted to hear the ideas I came up with, so I stopped sharing them.

  “You’re being strange today and I totally know what’s going on here,” she finished and smiled mischievously.

  “You do?” I asked, nervously. She turned to face forward and said in a hushed voice over her shoulder,

  “You’re freaking out over your big birthday. I would be too if I was never given a role in society. You have to integrate into the adult world soon, so you’re scared and that’s totally normal.” She glanced over at me and reached out to squeeze my hand with reassurance, “Well, it’s normal for you because the rest of us know exactly what we’re getting ourselves into.” Once again my stomach fluttered and I could feel the unsettling concern she held for me.

  I gave her a small smile, “I know you’re worried about me, b
ut you shouldn’t be. I believe it’ll all work out somehow and hey, if all else fails I’ll just follow you around like a puppy dog.” We both let out a giggle. Even though that wasn’t what I was worried about at the moment, I still felt more relaxed than I had been. Sara had that effect on me. I sat back in my chair thinking about what I had just learned. Mr. Swanson said that some of the originals could feel emotions. So how - or I guess a better question would be is why - could I suddenly feel emotions too?

  Mr. Swanson continued to ramble, but I was too curious to pay attention. I decided to test my newfound ability. I focused on Brad since he was sitting right in front of me. Sara and I have been friends with him since we were ten, but Sara has been in love with him since she was 13. He was the perfect candidate to test out my new power.

  He kept glancing over his shoulder to his right, right at Sara, who was sitting there twirling her hair around a pencil with a bored look on her face. I looked back at Brad and inhaled slowly. The swirls of excitement took me by surprise. There was also another feeling floating around. It felt like… longing? Love?

  “No way!” I said jumping out of my seat, still staring at Brad. The whole class turned to stare at me, including Sara and Brad. Still zeroed in on Brad, I could feel confusion swirling up inside me. I couldn’t blame him. I probably seemed like a complete weirdo. I cleared my throat quickly and looked at Mr. Swanson, “I mean... no way! That is so interesting. Sorry for interrupting your class. I would promise not to disrupt your class ever again but we all know that’s a promise just waiting to be broken. So please, do continue.” I could feel my cheeks burning with embarrassment and didn’t know if it was only my own feelings or if I was feeling the judgement from the rest of the class.

  From the doorway I could hear a low chuckle and as I turned to face the gorgeous guy walking into the classroom, I found myself at a loss for words. My gaze landed on his bright blue eyes. There was something about them that pulled me in, but they were so startling that at the same time I wanted to look away. He challenged my stare with his own intensity until someone cleared their throat and I looked over at Mr. Swanson who was looking at me like I had two heads, “Calliope, can you please take your seat so that I can introduce our new student?” I hadn’t even realized that I was still standing next to my desk. Great, freakin’ great. The hot new student had probably witnessed my little freak out and thought I was a total weirdo.

  “Class,” began Mr. Swanson, clearly annoyed at the interruption, “This very late young man is Liam. He just moved here from the Soleil province.” Still grinning slightly, Liam made his way across the classroom.

  I sunk down further in my chair and muttered to myself. “Great, the new guy is going to think I’m an idiot.”

  Sara giggled quietly and leaned over to me. “Hey, at least you know you made an impression.”

  “Yeah right,” I countered. “He’ll probably chalk me up to being that crazy chick that just stares at people awkwardly and never even speak to me.”

  She nodded her head towards Liam, “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” she grinned slyly as I realized he was heading to the only empty seat in the classroom, right next to mine. He stopped in front of my desk and looked down at me, speaking so quietly I barely caught it.

  “Calliope, huh? That’s my new favorite name,” he winked at me and sat down. I knew I was at least five different shades of red by now, but I have to admit that I kind of liked the way he said my name.

  As Mr. Swanson cleaned off the chalkboard, I contemplated what just happened. Brad, stoic and quiet Brad, was in love with Sara. As I realized what this meant, that I really could feel people’s emotions, I ignored Sara giving me curious side glances. It’s not like I could explain anything right now. I barely knew what was going on. How the hell did this happen and what did it mean for my future?

  Mr. Swanson interrupted my deep thoughts when he switched gears, “Okay, tell me what you know about the Great War. We’re doing a unit on it next period, but I’m curious how much you all can tell me right now.” I was pretty sure we all knew something about the Great War, you’d have to be an idiot if you didn’t. It changed everything.

  “We all know that Celestia was a peaceful paradise for the first few cycles, however the peace did not last. Does anyone know why that changed?” Mr. Swanson looked around questioningly.

  “It was Arius,” Liam said darkly, disgust clear on his face. Whoa, that seemed almost… personal. Mr. Swanson nodded.

  “Yes, it was because of our Savior Arius --”

  “He’s no one’s savior,” Liam said, louder this time and cutting off Mr. Swanson. “The man is a disgrace and should’ve never been given his gift in the first place.” Watching the pure hatred on his face was fascinating. It was like he was speaking from personal experience.

  “You act like you know him personally. I mean come on, he hasn’t been seen alive for a hundred cycles,” I turned to look at Liam as I spoke.

  “Just because no one has reported him doesn’t mean that he’s not lurking around. It just means no one sees him and lives.” The way he was so matter of fact about people potentially being murdered sent a shiver down my spine.

  Mr. Swanson tried to regain control of the conversation, “Most people still believe that he’s a Savior --”

  “Most people are idiots,” Liam interjected with a smirk. I couldn’t help but laugh at his comment and I heard Sara chuckle too.

  “That’s enough Liam,” Mr. Swanson said, clearly irritated for the second time today.

  “If you would let me finish, what I wanted to make sure you all knew today was that Arius grew angry at his father for creating humans. Death believed humans to be too imperfect and weak to inhabit Celestia. Arius decided to create an army of dead soldiers and take over Celestia by force. This was the start of the Great War and before the war was over, one Savior had fallen, Adela, and Arius was imprisoned by the Saviors that were left.” Mr. Swanson exhaled and looked up at the clock then quickly back at the class. The class was getting restless because the bell for the next class was about to ring.

  “Since Adela was killed, the remaining Originals were ordered to procreate so that their powers could get passed down through the generations. Those who developed these powers are the ones we now know as talents. We used to know who the talents were and could follow the lineage for each Original back through history, but as the Extremists began hunting down and killing talents, each bloodline was either ended or went into hiding. It’s unclear how many - if any - talents exist today.”

  To my left, a low growl came from an angry-looking Liam. Sara was giving me serious looks and before I could decide whether to use my new trick and read into Liam’s strange and intriguing behavior, the bell rang.

  Mr. Swanson held up a hand, halting us as we shoved our books into our backpacks and said, “The last thing you need to know for this section is that after the Father of Creation ordered the Originals to procreate, he created a Seer. She or he was - and is - the person in charge of assigning our roles in society and our death dates. Please read chapters four and five in your books for homework.” We resumed packing our bags and again to my left, in a voice so low I wasn’t totally sure I heard him correctly, Liam grumbled,

  “She.” She? What was he talking about? We didn’t know whether the seer was a female or not, but Liam seemed pretty sure of himself. This was turning out to be the weirdest birthday ever.

  Throwing my bag over my shoulder, Sara grabbed my arm and pulled me to the door before I could even try to talk to Liam. I stumbled a few steps before I caught up with her stride.

  She stopped, pulling me against the lockers with her. “Okay, what the hell? Seriously, what is wrong with you today?” She was starting to really worry. I could not only feel it, but I saw it written across her face.

  “Calm down,” I said. “I had that outburst because I found out that Brad is completely crushing on you. No scratch that, he’s in love with you Sara!”

  She bu
rst into laughter, doubling over until tears were running down her cheeks. “Ha ha, good one.” She replied sarcastically after several deep breaths.

  “No, I’m serious Sara. He really likes you!” I exclaimed excitedly, and from the corner of my eye I noticed that Liam had slowed down as he caught up to us in the hallway. I met his startling blue eyes with a questioningly look and he quickly kept going towards his next class.

  Sara stopped laughing and looked at me curiously, “How could you possibly know that? Brad is… Stoic. He never shows a hint of what he’s thinking and never has for as long as I can remember. So how in Celestia do you know?”

  I stepped closer to her and lowered my voice. “I could just tell okay. He kept looking over his shoulder at you. I could just feel that he was into you.” She looked at me, unconvinced. She opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by the second class bell.

  “Shit!” I swore, “We’re late. Let’s go!” I tried pulling Sara, which should have been easy with her tiny frame, but she stood firm, not moving a muscle.

  “I want to know what’s going on with you Callie.”

  I let go of her and sighed, “Fine, but not right now. I’ll explain everything after school. Okay?” She nodded and we started down the corridor before she grabbed my hand and gave me a serious look.

  “Listen Callie, I can tell that you’re interested in the new guy, but I think you should be careful. He seems like trouble to me.” Sara was being completely serious and it caught me by surprise.

  “He’s the new mysterious guy, of course I’m interested. It’s not like a whole lot ever happens around here. You don’t have to worry about me.” I squeezed her hand in mine and tugged her towards our Careers class. “Come on, before we have to write essays on my birthday!”